


Lonely Little Swan

by stealingpotatoes



Series: Swans and Crows [3]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Sad boi hours, The Golden Cat (Dishonored), hella angst, kinda speedily done lol, some comfort though!, yes I just used the word hella in 2020 cringe culture is dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:41:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24768676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stealingpotatoes/pseuds/stealingpotatoes
Summary: A courtesan at the Golden Cat tries to cheer a crying Emily up.
Series: Swans and Crows [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1796710
Kudos: 42





	Lonely Little Swan

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, do you ever think about how, when Corvo saves her, Emily says _“They told me you were-- head chopped off, in the prison. Dead. Like Mother”_ ? Because I think about it a lot, and consequentially I get very sad a lot. I mean- poor Emily thought that both of her parents (or if she didn’t know about Corvo, thought her mother and the closest thing she had to a father) were dead for up to 6 months! She was really not having a good time!

Emily tried to scramble away while Madame Prudence dragged her down the halls of the Golden Cat, but the Madame was stronger than she was, and kept her iron grip on Emily’s arm. Madame Prudence ripped Emily’s door open and shoved her inside, practically throwing her. She’d pushed with enough force to get Emily halfway across the room and make her trip and fall.

“Do as I tell you, you little brat,” Madame Prudence yelled, standing in the doorway, “Stay in your room!” 

Emily pushed off the cold wooden floorboards and got to her feet, “I hate you!”

The Madame laughed with that horrible laugh she had, “You think I care?”

“Corvo will come save me, then you’ll care- you’ll  _ wish  _ you cared!” Emily shouted, almost screaming, hands balled up into little fists by her side.

“Corvo Attano?” Madame Prudence seemed to think for a moment, some cruel expression forming on her face “Corvo’s dead.”

Everything in the world seemed to come to a grinding halt. 

“What?” Emily barely managed a whisper.

“He’s dead. Executed in prison. They chopped his head off.” Madame Prudence snapped, “He’s not coming to save you.”

The Madame might have said something about shutting up and staying put before she slammed the door, but Emily didn’t hear it. It was as if someone had plunged her underwater, making everything muffled and sound far away. She felt numb everywhere. 

Emily sat down, slowly. Corvo was dead. Her  _ father _ was dead. Both- both of her parents were dead. Killed. They were gone. And she- and she wasn’t. She was alone. Emily was completely and utterly alone. No-one was coming to help her. Corvo was dead. 

_ Corvo was dead. _

Emily began to sob. She hugged her legs close to her and sobbed into her knees and felt her shoulders move as she weeped. Her warm tears soaked into her breeches. 

Eventually, Emily willed herself to move off the hard floor, despite everything, and crawled the small distance to her soft bed, and curled into it. She continued to sob into her pillow, louder now. She didn’t care about being quiet. She didn’t care about anything. Emily cried and cried and cried, until she wasn’t even crying actual tears, just whimpering into her wet pillow. She wanted to stop, but she wasn’t sure she could even do anything else. She didn’t care about staying strong now. It was like that first day all over again.

Emily wasn’t sure how long she cried for. It might have been two hours, or twenty minutes. But after however long it was, she heard singing coming from behind the wall by her bed. It was muffled, but it was beautiful, like an angel. Emily pulled her head out of her pillow and sniffed a little. The singer kept singing. Emily sat up and leaned her back and head against the wall, and her crying slowed. 

Emily realised that she recognised the tune and the muffled words all too well, and after a little while, found herself mumbling and humming along. Humming turned to soft singing between sniffles and whimpers. 

And slowly, the song came to an end. 

Emily didn’t want it to end, but before she could say anything, a voice- the singer’s voice came from behind the wall, “You know that song?” She had a nice, soft voice. 

“I um-“ Emily turned her head to put her ear to the wall- “My father used to sing it to me,” She could call him that now, it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like either of her parents could tell her off for it.

“It’s a Serkonan lullaby- are you Serkonan?”

Emily felt another sob choke in her throat, “He- my father was.”

The woman paused for a moment or two, “What’s your name, little girl?”

Emily wiped her tears, “Emily.”

“That’s a lovely name.” the woman said, with a warmth Emily hadn’t heard anyone speak to her with in months, “And how old are you, Emily?”

“I’m ten next week,” Emily replied. She only had a rough idea of what day it was, but she knew her birthday was next week. And that it had been Corvo’s birthday last week- or maybe this week. Emily stifled a sob again, “What’s your name?”

“I’m Luiza,” Luiza replied.

“It’s nice to meet you, Luiza.” Emily fiddled with her hands, “Are you from Serkonos?”

“I am.” There was a note of sadness in Luiza’s voice, “Have you ever been to Serkonos, Emily?” 

Emily shook her head, before remembering Luiza couldn’t see her, “No, I haven’t. But I want to.”

“I hope you get to one day, it’s- it’s a beautiful place.”

Emily sat up a little straighter, “What’s it like?”

A warm and soft laugh escaped Luiza, one that almost made Emily want to smile, "Um... Well, it’s much sunnier than Gristol. And much hotter, too. It isn’t always raining- the sky’s almost always blue, and the trees are filled with colourful fruits and flowers that you can pick and smell. Which if you can, you should, because Serkonan fruits and flowers are the best there are.”

“I’ve had Serkonan food before.”

“Oh yeah?” Luiza asked with a smile in her voice, “What did you think?” 

“It was really nice,” Emily continued to fiddle with her hands. 

Luiza sounded like she shifted against the wall a little, “I grew up just outside of Karnaca— you know where that is?”

“Mm.  _ The Jewel of the South _ ,” Emily parroted.

“Heh- yeah, that’s it. The sea in Karnaca is warm and it’s always such a beautiful colour. Not like the murky Wrenhaven. We used to go swimming in the sea all the time.” Luiza paused for a beat, then spoke a little quieter, “I miss it.”

Corvo used to say that, sometimes- that he missed Serkonos. But he always said that his favourite place was wherever Emily and her mother were, and he couldn’t miss Serkonos more than he loved them. 

Emily blinked her tears away and looked down, “Why did you leave?”

“That- that’s a long story.” Luiza sighed. Or maybe Emily imagined the sigh, because she was sure the walls weren’t thin enough for her to hear that.

Emily wanted to say that she knew she had time to listen to the story, but she got the feeling it was one of those ‘long stories’ that people said were long because they just didn’t want to tell them. 

They settled into silence again and Emily realised just how profoundly tired she felt. The numbness had been replaced with an almost aching exhaustion.

“Could you sing again? Please?” Emily asked, sounding a lot more pathetic than she’d meant to. 

“Yeah- of course, of course.”

Emily slowly laid herself down and listened as Luiza began to sing again. And while she listened, Emily pretended that this all wasn’t happening. That she was at home, in her room, in her bed, in Dunwall Tower. That everything was okay, and her parents were fine. And maybe that it was her mother singing her a lullaby to calm her to sleep after she’d had a nightmare — because that was what this had to be; just a bad dream — while Corvo protectively watched on, with that smile reserved only for Emily and her mother on his face. Emily thought of them as she drifted off to sleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> If I made you sad, we can start a club, because I made me sad too. But remember, everything's eventually fine in the end (I mean- aside from the massive trauma), so we don't have to be sad.  
> But thanks for reading!


End file.
